An existing liquid ejection head is constituted by components including a recording element board, through which a recording liquid is ejected, a supporting member, which supports and secures the recording element board, and an electric wiring tape, which transmits an ejection signal to the recording element board.
Generally, the recording element board is bonded and fixed to the supporting member with an adhesive. The supporting member includes a contact reference surface used to position the liquid ejection head when the liquid ejection head is mounted on an inkjet recording apparatus. In order to achieve a high printing quality, the recording element board has to be fixed on the supporting member with a high positioning accuracy and thus an adhesive that cures with heat or with ultraviolet rays is used to fix the recording element board.
The bonding/fixing procedure is performed in the following order. The supporting member and the recording element board are positioned relative to each other, the supporting member and the recording element board are brought into contact with each other with an adhesive interposed therebetween, and the recording element board is irradiated with heat or ultraviolet rays while being fixed by a holding member, which is a mounting tool, in order to secure the adhesive. If the curing of the adhesive is insufficient when the recording element board is released from positional restraint provided by the holding member after a predetermined period of time, the recording element board may be displaced due to reasons such as flowing of a liquid portion of the adhesive or cure shrinkage of the adhesive during curing in a furnace that follows the bonding. Considering the take time in the production process, accelerating the curing of the adhesive as much as possible during the bonding using the mounting tool is effective for highly accurately bonding and fixing the recording element board to the supporting member.
Generally, the curing state of an adhesive is controllable by changing the curing conditions in a mounting step. For example, increasing the amount of heat or ultraviolet radiation supplied to an area to be bonded can accelerate the curing of the adhesive.
PTL 1 discloses the following method. When the recording element board is to be bonded to the supporting member, in order to accelerate the curing of an adhesive, a voltage is applied to a wiring of the recording element board to cause the recording element board to generate heat in itself so that the recording element board is bonded to the supporting member by the heat.
PTL 2 discloses the following method. A heater is inserted into a hole formed in a supporting member to cause heat to be conducted to the supporting member. Thus, an adhesive that bonds the recording element board and the supporting member together is heated so that the curing of the adhesive is accelerated.